Supernatural season 8 premieres this week, but it won’t be until next week’s “What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?” that there’s a glimpse at Castiel, and not much has been revealed about what’s happening with him this season.

SPN Season 8 Spoilers

The sneak peek out from the premiere shows Dean saying that Castiel “let go” in purgatory, but he doesn’t tell Sam what happened to him. So far, the only information out on him is about flashbacks, and that trend continues with what Jeremy Carver told TVGuide.com: “We’ll be telling that story of Purgatory [through flashbacks] pretty steadily through the first seven or eight episodes. You’ll start to get a really good understanding what happened in Purgatory to Cas.” The photos out so far (like the one to the right) don’t paint a pretty picture, and at Comic-Con (press room interview below), Misha Collins did say purgatory “appears to be more hellish for Cas than hell was.” Is Castiel dead? What exactly happened to him in purgatory? Considering past events, it’s not like he couldn’t come back in some way, but given how little Dean said about what happened to Castiel, something obviously went down.

Also coming up in Supernatural season 8 is an episode that will involve found footage, and “Bitten” isn’t going to have much from Sam and Dean. Instead, “about 95 percent of the episode” will be the “found footage” that will show college kids in “a situation that goes ‘pretty horribly awry,'” according to Carver. He went on to say, “You’re really engaged with these kids,” so why does it seem likely that either none or just one of them survives whatever happens to them? Will Sam and Dean just come in in time to save one of them from something that kills the other two? This sounds like it could be an intriguing episode, but will it work with so much of the episode focused on the found footage and having less Sam and Dean?